


The Deep End

by crocodileinterior



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M, Lighthearted to Angst, Mostly Gen, Swimming Pools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26668912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocodileinterior/pseuds/crocodileinterior
Summary: “When I was 10 I went to Metropolis for a riding competition. Your father invited us to stay over. My aunt said you had an indoor pool. When I went to check it out, I found you and a girl skinny dipping. I think you were teaching her the breaststroke?”Lex and Lana’s first time meeting and two other instances of Lex, Lana, and an indoor pool.
Relationships: Lana Lang & Lex Luthor, Lana Lang/Lex Luthor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	The Deep End

**Author's Note:**

> ( the first two stories are just about Lex and Lana's friendship, the last one hints at a romance. So if you don't like the pairing, just read the first two..! )

**The Breaststroke** - **1995**

Lex Luthor was fifteen years old and like most boys his age, ragingly hormonal and sexually insatiable. But most boys Lex’s age didn’t have billionaire fathers or have access to a penthouse suite complete with an indoor swimming pool in one of the many apartments under the Luthor name in Metropolis. As much as Lex resented it most of the time, he had to admit, sometimes being Lionel Luthor’s son had real perks.

Lex’s flavor of the week was Natalie Townsend, who was at that moment undoing the strings of her bikini top and stripping down to the nude before slipping into the water of the aforementioned indoor pool. Lex eyed her admiringly as she gave him a flirtatious look and tossed her hair over her shoulder.

A little skinny dipping was harmless fun, especially in a private pool in a penthouse empty except for the two of them. But the relationship between Lex and Natalie would end up slightly less harmless if Lex made good on his bad boy reputation- after all, their fathers were engaged in extremely delicate negotiations on a trade deal between their respective corporations.

The fact that Lex knew he wasn’t supposed to do something always ended up being at least half the appeal in doing it. Or doing her, as the case may be. And Natalie was seventeen, gorgeous, with ample breasts and a tanline still slightly visible from her most recent Cabo vacation. She was worth shedding his swim trunks and diving into the water for. And if it jeopardized his father’s business arrangements, well that was just an added bonus.

Natalie had long, dark, brown hair and she slicked it back with her hands away from her face as she swam up to Lex, the rippling of the pool water only slightly obscuring the sight of her naked body.

“I’m not a very good swimmer, you know.” she used that teasing, slightly breathy voice that teen girls used when they were being seductive.

“Well, if you drown I guess I’ll just have to give you mouth to mouth.” Lex smirked, shameless.

She made a show of rolling her eyes and splashing him. She giggled as he chased her in the water until her back was to the pool wall and Lex could press himself against her, sliding his hands underwater up her thighs, over her stomach and then to cup her breasts. She moaned, loudly, probably imitating some porno she’d watched. But it edged him on and he brushed his thumbs around the peaks of her nipples until she arched her back for him and pulled him into a wet, sloppy, kiss.

As jaded and experienced as Lex already was at fifteen, the novelty of breasts had not yet worn off for him. Size wasn’t necessarily important, and he preferred flat but natural to the hard, melon sized, fake ones on the red light district women of the German night clubs he’d sampled on spring breaks abroad in Europe, but there was something undeniably pleasurable in being able to fill his hands with them. Natalie’s were soft and natural and spilled between his fingers as he squeezed them but he couldn’t help mentally comparing them to Victoria Hardwick’s which were formidably huge and that he’d had the opportunity to grope in the coat closet of a Christmas party the winter before after they’d both sneaked a bit too much spiked eggnog.

Natalie was just taking his lower lip between her teeth when in the periphary of Lex’s vision he caught sight of a pair of bright pink sneakers- the kind that lit up when you stepped on them. His eyes followed them upward to see they were connected to an elementary school aged girl who was standing at the entrance of the pool room, staring directly at him and Natalie with eyes as wide as saucers.

“Uhhh…” Lex said, staring back uselessly as Natalie nibbled on his ear, oblivious.

The little girl jolted, like a deer caught in headlights, turned heel and sprinted out of the room.

Lex gave Natalie a light shove, dislodging her tongue from his ear canal. “Shit.” he muttered.

“Ew, was that a little kid?!” Natalie whined, always quick on the uptake.

“I don’t know.” Lex snapped, pulling himself out of the pool and shimmying back into his swim trunks. “No one was supposed to be here today.”

It wasn’t like you could wander accidentally into a penthouse apartment complete with security and a doorman guarding the entrance. He thought the cleaning lady only came in once a week but maybe she was there and it was her kid, and if so, it made one more person Lex would have to slip a bribe to for not telling his father that he was using the pool to get closer to his business associate’s daughter.

Natalie made an annoyed noise but stayed in the water as he left the pool room and followed down the hallway after the intruder girl. Even walking he caught up to her pretty quick, halted and looking around for someplace to hide.

“Hey!” Lex called, grabbing her by the hot pink stap of her backpack and turning her around. “Who are you? You lost or something?”

The girl swung her backpack out of his grip but it fell to the ground, opening up and spilling its contents onto the tile floor. She hesitated, staying stock still as if she made any sudden movements Lex might attack her.

Lex finally took a moment to look at her. She definitely wasn’t from Metropolis. Even elementary schoolers wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything as casual as jeans and scuffed sneakers if they were from his side of town, but this girl didn’t have a designer label on her. The only thing fancy she wore was a simple necklace with a bright green gemstone at its center. In fact, caught in the strands of one of her twin braids was even a piece of… hay? There was something endearingly organic about the doe eyed girl. She was adorable and one day would probably be very pretty. Even though she was glaring at Lex with extreme suspicion- not that he wasn’t used to that, but usually people waited long enough for him to do something to warrant that look.

He leaned down and picked up some of the things that had fallen out of her backpack, shoving in pencils, erasers, and then landing on a thick book. He examined the cover while she still kept her distance, as hesitant as an animal about to startle.

“Jane Eyre?” he said, holding the book out to her. She snatched it out of his hands quickly.

He tried to offer her his most disarming smile. “I like your reading choice.”

He didn’t mention that most kids at least waited until high school before getting into 19th century Victorian literature. Lex himself had been a notably precocious reader when he’d been her age and had never been impressed back then by adults simpering about how ‘mature’ he was. Lex knew that a voracious appetite for books, especially ones less frivolous than what was typically deemed age appropriate, and the longer the better, was usually the telltale sign of a lonely, introverted, childhood.

The girl eyed him warily, clutching Jane Eyre tightly to her chest. The volume looked too big for her small hands. Lex was about to ask her who she was when from the other end of the hallway, Lionel Luthor, accompanied by a woman, turned the corner and spotted them.

Lionel didn’t look happy to see him, though when had he ever, and he scowled. “Lex? What are you doing here? I thought you were with your SAT tutor in midtown today.” he said it as an accusation.

Luckily Lex was a natural born liar and shrugged, smiling easily. “He called in sick an hour before the appointment so I thought I’d come use the pool.”

It might’ve worked on anyone else but Lionel narrowed his eyes at him skeptically. Lex looked past him to the woman at his side.

“You remember Nell Potter.” Lionel said, and then gestured to the girl who had taken the opportunity to shove the rest of her things into her backpack and zip it closed. “And her niece- Lana.”

Ah. In fact, Lex did remember Nell Potter and her niece. Lana Lang. She’d lost her parents in the same meteor shower that he’d been caught in, that had taken his hair. He raised his hand unconsciously to the nape of his neck, touching the place where his fingers used to meet thick red curls. He’d returned to Smallville a few times since then, his father had even bothered to move over the ‘Luthor ancestral home’ to a plot of land he’d bought in the podunk. He couldn’t understand his father’s fascination with the place. If it had been up to Lex, he never would’ve gone back there again. Just driving through the endless fields of corn stalks gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Even though Lex had made no attempt to hide his hatred of the place, his father went back frequently to attend to business at the fertilizer plant stationed there. Lex suspected his father had become so fixated on it as yet another way to torture Lex. Along with the plant and the mansion, Nell Potter seemed to be another of Lionel’s acquisitions in the town. He’d even brought her to visit Lex’s school once, to witness a polo match he played in. She’d been proudly wearing diamond earrings far too expensive to buy on a florist’s salary.

Whatever charms Lionel had worked on Nell, Lana seemed immune to. The glare she’d had for Lex was nothing in comparison to the stink face she was aiming at Lionel, full of the sort of unabashed hatred only young children yet untrained in restraint were capable of.

“I was going to show them the pool.” Lionel explained. Then leaned down to Lana’s height level, giving her a patronizing smile. “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it, Lana?”

“I came here because Nell said I had to.” Lana said sourly.

Lex stifled a laugh behind his hand but Lionel caught it and shot him a sharp, disapproving look.

Nell blushed. “Lana! Where are your manners? I’m so sorry, Lionel. I don’t know where she picks these things up.”

“Lex already showed me the pool.” Lana said, haughtily. “I don’t feel like going swimming anymore.” And then she gave Lex a very pointedly withering look to convey that she was covering for him and that he owed her his gratitude.

Lex forced a smile that he hoped didn’t come out more like the grimace he was feeling. “Yeah. The water’s pretty cold today, anyway. Heater must be on the fritz again. I should probably head out soon. Nice to see you again, Nell… Lana…”

He nodded at both of them and Lana made a show of crossing her arms over her chest and looking away. He could feel Lionel’s eyes on his back even as he walked away. When he got back to the pool room Natalie was out of the water and had donned her bikini once more and a pair of oversized Gucci sunglasses.

“We’ve gotta go.” Lex said, grabbing his clothes from by the poolside and hurriedly pulling them on.

She pushed the sunglasses down the bridge of her nose. “Whaat? We just got here. I thought we were gonna, y’know…” she wiggled her eyebrows. “Stay the night.”

“Change of plans.” Lex said, shrugging his jacket on. “My father’s here so we’re going to have to sneak out, preferably without him noticing you.”

He picked up her clothes as well and tossed them at her unceremoniously. “So get dressed.”

Natalie made a fuss and whined until Lex reminded her that she’d catch just as much heat if her father found out that she’d been there so she shut up and followed him, pulling her sundress on over her bikini. They managed to tiptoe through the halls undetected until they got to the living room and Lex paused outside the half open door, peeking in through the gap.

Nell was somewhere else but his father was there, on the phone with someone from work. He was facing away from them, and also turned away from the front door- their only exit out of the penthouse. But Lana was sitting on the couch in the middle of the room, her copy of Jane Eyre open in her lap.

It was a gamble, but Lex had always had a fairly high tolerance for risk. He motioned silently to Natalie to follow him and she clung to the back of his jacket, taking careful steps after him as they inched along the wall toward the exit.

The floor creaked slightly under Lex’s foot and he winced, glancing to see if they’d been found out. But Lionel hadn’t heard it over his own voice- bellowing into the phone’s mouthpiece about minority stakes and board votes. But Lana from her perch on the couch was staring at them, eyes alert.

He put a finger to his lips and shook his head slightly, giving her a silent message to not tattle on him. She blinked at him passively but then nodded ever so slightly, then raised her finger to her lips and made the motion of locking them shut and throwing away the key. Lex smiled. _Good kid_ , he thought.

With Natalie still practically glued to his back tagging along after him he managed to make it to the door undetected by Lionel and on a particular grandiosely loud “No, I’ve TOLD you it’s NON negotiable-" into the phone, Lex opened the door and they sneaked through it successfully.

Lionel never did find out that he and Natalie had been messing around in the pool that day… But a few weeks later he’d find out that they’d been sleeping together when Lex broke up with her and she went crying to daddy to break off the trade deal.

\- - -

 **Pool Party** \- **2003**

Most people didn’t know the full extent of the facilities available at the Luthor Mansion in Smallville. The place was a nightmare to pay the heating bills for so Lex usually only used a few rooms of the house. The tennis court, the ballroom, and the armory went mostly unused throughout the year except for the occasional charity fundraiser Lex held when he opened them up to guests. Many people weren’t even aware that the mansion had its own indoor pool complete with jacuzzi.

Since Lana had never had a chance to try out the pool in the Metropolis penthouse, when Lex had moved to Smallville and she’d reminded him of the encounter they’d had those years ago, he’d done the gentlemanly thing and extended an invitation for her to use the much larger pool in the mansion whenever she wanted. This had garnered an eyeroll from Lana who had grown up a lot since he’d last seen her but had not lost any of her spunk.

It was a full year and a half later that she finally took him up on the offer. Desperately hot Kansas summers beget desperate measures, after all. And while Lex had invited Clark and Chloe to come as well, Chloe was busy with applications to a Metropolis internship and while Clark had initially agreed to come he’d become ‘busy’ at the last minute in Clark-typical fashion, so it had ended up Lex and Lana alone with each other.

Lex didn’t mind that at all. He’d spent many nights in his life at pool parties on skyscraper rooftops where people poured $1,000 champagne in the jacuzzi and girls in bikinis took their tops off like they were auditioning for Girls Gone Wild. At the time it had seemed the height of fun. Lex had thought he’d hate being in Smallville and missing out on that type of lifestyle but the quiet was nice- for the first time in years he felt like he could hear himself think.

Almost as surprising was how much he enjoyed Lana’s company in particular. Lana was kind, quick, well-read, utterly sarcastic at the best of times, and didn’t fall asleep during old movies like Clark did. She was the only person in Smallville that could be trusted for reading recommendations (Chloe’s veered too steeply into the realm of the X-Files) and was a pleasure to do business with at the Talon.

At first he’d thought it would be difficult to win Lana over since she’d seen him on his worst behavior first hand, but she’d actually been one of the first people to give him a chance.

Between her dutiful work ethic and bookishness it sometimes seemed like Lana was someone much older and wiser trapped in the body of a coincidentally very beautiful teenage girl. It was almost a relief to see her in those rare, wild, moments of indiscretion that seemed to strike the teenagers of Smallville on a near supernatural level and then end with equal abruptness without explanation. To Lex it seemed far more age appropriate to be stealing cars, doing drugs, cheating on your boyfriend, and skipping out on work at age seventeen.

Sitting on the poolside with her legs dangling in the water, Lana was starting to look less like the little girl whose hands were too small for her copy of Jane Eyre and more like the girls he’d groped in the jacuzzi when he himself was a teenager. The bikini she was wearing was tasteful but girly and the little pink flowers on it reminded Lex that she was still just a kid.

“I’m sorry Clark couldn’t make it.” Lex said, lowering himself into the water. He hated how he looked in his swim trunks- pale and hairless with a light dusting of freckles on his shoulders. As guilty as Clark and his friends were of not visiting his pool, he was equally guilty of not taking them up on their offer to go to Crater Lake- their usual summer hang out. He was too self conscious to be out so underdressed in front of Smallville people he didn’t know. In the past any insecurities he’d had would always be tempered with alcohol consumption but showing up to the lake wasted was the sort of thing he would’ve done years ago, not part of the new, adult Lex’s play book.

Lana put her hand to her forehead. “Don’t even get me started. It’s the third time he’s run out on plans we’d made this summer.”

“I don’t think he means to,” Lex said, apologetic on his friend’s behalf, “He just gets caught up with…. whatever mysterious Clark-things Clark does.”

Lana shook her head. “Forget it. I’m resolved not to think about him for the rest of the day.”

“Very sensible plan.” Lex agreed.

The mansion’s pool had a sleek, modern, design in comparison with the antique styling featured in most of the other rooms of the house. It had been a modern addition when the castle had been moved over to Kansas. It faced large glass windows that washed the water with natural light and it was surrounded with stone floors giving it a more natural feel. It made for a relaxing retreat though Lex usually used it alone to swim laps.

Lana sank into the water, shivering at first as she adjusted to the temperature, and then swimming until it came up to her neck, out toward the deeper end where Lex was.

“Hard to believe this is your first time here. You should use the pool more often, it’s a shame my father spent so much money on it and I’m the only one who ever gets to see it.” Lex said.

“I didn’t think I needed a repeat of what happened last time I went to your pool.” Lana gave him a teasing grin. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

Lex chuckled nervously. “Duly noted… I did a lot of things back then that I regret.”

“Oh, right. You invented teenage rebellion, as you keep reminding us.” Lana rolled her eyes with a good natured laugh. “And what did you say you invented it with again?”

“A shoe lace, a paper clip, and a Luthorcorp black card, I think.” Lex mused.

Lana granted him a wide smile, the rare kind, that showed all of her teeth, and splashed him with enough water to soak him. He took the punishment with a grin, shaking his head at her in mock disapproval.

“Splash me all you want. I don’t have to worry about drying off my hair.” he said smugly, dragging his hand across the top of his bare scalp.

Lana obliged and splashed him again, but this time it didn’t go without retaliation.

\- - --

 **The Deep End** - **2006**

The mansion always felt quiet as a cemetery at night. When Lana first moved in, Lex had thought it might feel warmer to him with her presence, but it hadn’t changed. He came home from Metropolis and the hallways still seemed to emanate cold, silence, darkness, haunted only by his footsteps and calling out “Lana?” to see where she’d hidden herself, to see if she’d disappeared while he was gone- changed her mind and fled bluebeard’s castle while she still could. But no, he always found her, somewhere. And that night it was in the pool.

The lights were out when he entered, the water indigo lit only by the full moon through the windows. The girl in the pool seemed only half familiar. Dark hair fanned around her shoulders in the water, the silhoutte of her body long and lean even in the half light. When she turned to Lex at the sound of his footsteps, he saw that the top of her shoulders above the water were strapless, she was naked. Bathed in moonlight she looked nearly too beautiful to be believed. She always had been. She and Clark always had been. They were like something Lex could have only come up with in his dreams. And maybe that was one of the many reasons he’d never quite been able to trust them.

“Midnight swim?” Lex said, voice echoing against the water like they were in a cave.

Lana smiled, a little shyly, lowering herself until the water came up to her chin. “I didn’t have a bathing suit… Hope you don’t mind.”

Lex sat down at the edge of the pool, dipping his hand in the cool water as Lana swam toward him. He felt like he was beckoning to a mermaid to come to shore.

Lana’s body cut gracefully through the water, ripples and the shadows of the dim room obscuring her as more than a tan, elegant, shape connected to a beautiful head bobbing over the surface as she came to tread water by Lex’s seat.

They smiled at each other- tired. They had both been perpetually tired for a while. Their respective relationships with Clark having rewritten them, every aspect of their lives, ruined them, made them unsuitable for anybody’s company except each other’s.

“Come in the water.” Lana said. Her fingers gripped the pool edge by Lex’s ankle.

He offered an apologetic smile. “I have to wake up early tomorrow for a conference call with the board. Besides, I don’t have anything to wear.”

Her fingers, wet and cold, touched the skin peeking out beneath the leg of his trouser. “I’m not wearing anything either.”

Lex’s eyes followed the path of a drop of water sliding from her hair down her neck, resting in the curve of her collarbone. His tongue darted to the edge of his lips, wetting them unconciously. For over a year there had been nothing but mixed signals between them. He knew it had been a bad idea to have Lana stay in the mansion. Every day it felt like they came closer to doing something they’d regret.

Lana looked in his eyes. “I think I’m old enough to skinny dip with you now.”

Lex passed his hand over his face and scoffed, attempting to diffuse the situation. “I fear living with me may have had a corrupting influence on you.”

She pulled herself up so she was resting on her elbows over the edge of the pool, her hair slick and dripping down her back, her eyelashes dark and clumped together with water.

“Or maybe my influence has made you more of a prude.” she laughed, lilting but a touch sad. Laughter was rare from her now, like a muscle memory of something she used to do and only continued out of habit.

“Chloe and I used to go to Crater Lake late at night and jump in the water naked in the summer.” she said wistfully.

She was too young to be reminiscing about how good things used to be, Lex thought. But countless tragedies and failed relationships could do that to a person. He still remembered when her smiles had come more easily to her.

Lex leaned in close. Close enough for it to be a dare. Because never let it be said he didn’t give Lana every opportunity to run away before she got hurt. She’d known him long enough to know that everything he touched went down in flames. But he knew Lana was no stranger to pain. He watched goosebumps raise on the still wet skin of her shoulders. He was sick of this game and having to play the good guy. His heart felt worn down with longing for all the things he couldn’t have.

“I’m not Chloe. And this isn’t Crater Lake.” he whispered, as a warning.

Lana pulled herself up, until she was edged over the side of the pool and her face was a fraction of an inch away from Lex’s. He could feel her exhale on his lips and tasted chlorine. She held herself there, scrutinizing him, with expectation, maybe wondering if she kissed him if he’d turn from a frog into her prince. And the thought made Lex retreat first, pulling away just as their lips nearly brushed together.

Lana smiled at him sadly. “Coward.” she breathed. Then slipped herself back into the water and swam away.

_End._


End file.
